The present invention relates to a pipe-lined data processor system for processing, in a data-drive manner, data which are stored in separate memory apparatus and have the sequence previously determined to be processed.
A conventional pipe-lined data processor system, as shown in FIG. 12, comprises memory apparatus 1201, 1202 and a processing apparatus section 1203. In operation of this system, data addresses for the memory apparatus are managed concentratedly by a control section, which belongs to the processing apparatus section 1203, in accordance with the centralized processing form of Neumann type. Therefore, a problem arises in that as the amount of data to be concurrently processed in parallel is increased, the address management mechanism becomes larger in size and hence practical packaging is rendered more difficult. One of means for solving the above problem is disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 61-201338 (1986) and No. 61-202227 (1986), for example. With the disclosed means, address management for the memory apparatus is carried out by placing a data string on a bus, which includes a command called an address token, and then sending the data string to the memory apparatus. Also, to achieve synchronous processing of plural data, a queue mechanism is provided in a processing section to temporarily store the data therein.
The prior system as shown in FIG. 12 has another problem. More specifically, in case that the data speed on an input/output bus 1204 for a peripheral apparatus is different from the processing speed of input/output buses 1205, 1206 for the pipe-line processing section, one memory apparatus cannot concurrently be used for two purposes; i.e., for input/output processing and for pipe-line processing. Further, the system disclosed in the above Laid-Open publications can avoid difficulty in practical packaging when it is needed to process a plurality of operand data at the same time. However, control is complicated because the memory apparatus is required to distinguish an address token and a data token from each other, and the proportion of a period in which effective data is carried on the bus (i.e., bus utilization factor) is not improved.